The Hockey Writers Daily - June 24, 2023
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In today’s special Saturday pre-draft edition we have some of the most popular NHL Draft content from the past week, including 10 Bold Predictions, the Steal of the Draft, Final Rankings, a two-round Mock Draft and more.
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Here’s the good draft stuff:.
10 Bold Predictions for the 2023 NHL Draft
It’s always a good idea to go into the draft expecting the unexpected, and that’s just what we’re trying to do. We made a list of predictions and whittled it down to the favourite 10, the kind of predictions you share all over Twitter if they’re right and ignore completely after the fact if they were wrong. Let’s take a look at some of our swings this year and then we’ll have to wait until the Draft takes place on June 28-29 to find out how accurate they were.
Final Combined 2023 Draft Rankings – Top 32
This is the culmination of a year-plus of scouting and writing, hundreds of hours of work and hockey are combined here. This list is a compilation of Peter Baracchini’s Final Rankings (Top 128), Devin Little’s Final Rankings (Top-64), Andrew Forbes’ Final Rankings (Top 128) and my own (Logan Horn’s) Final Rankings (Top-160). We combined each of our final rankings of the top prospects in the class and found the average ranking spot, then organized the top-32 prospects based on their average draft position.
2023 NHL Draft: 5 Teams Under Most Pressure
In this part of our countdown to the NHL Draft series, we are going to look at five teams that are facing some of the most pressure to not only get this draft right, but to get this offseason right. Every team faces some kind of pressure. But these five teams stand out due to the potential consequences facing them if they don’t maximize this opportunity.
Whether it’s making the correct choice on the draft floor or signing off on the right trade, these teams face franchise altering decisions that could impact them and their development for years. Our list starts north of the border.
Meet the Steal of the 2023 NHL Draft
With over 400 players eligible to hear their name called, there are diamonds in the rough that can be found by teams who do the most homework. Those players will ultimately become steals.
For the purposes of this discussion, we define a steal as someone who will vastly outperform where they are expected to go in the draft. A couple of names immediately come to mind here.
2023 NHL Draft Rankings: Forbes’ Top 128 Rankings
with the 2023 NHL Draft just around the corner, what better time than now to dive back in and break down my top-128 prospects for the draft set to take place in Nashville in just under two weeks.
Atop the draft, things haven’t changed. Connor Bedard is still the undisputed number one pick with fellow Canadian and Hobey Baker Award winner Adam Fantilli following him up. It’s at that number three spot that things seem to open up a little more with a few possibilities of who the Columbus Blue Jackets could take when they’re on the clock.
2023 NHL Draft: Horn’s Two Round Mock Draft
There are always lots of rumors flying around this time of year, connecting teams with players they are reportedly interested in, so we’ve done our best to keep up to date on some of that. If you want to know how we would rank these players based on talent rather than on where we think they’ll land, feel free to check out our latest draft rankings here where we ranked the top-100 prospects as we see them.
2023 NHL Draft Guide
Consider The Hockey Writers your go-to source for everything related to the NHL Draft and this page your live home page for information on the upcoming 2023 NHL Entry Draft.
Bookmark this guide and check back often as it will be constantly updated leading up to hockey’s version of Christmas. THW’s 2023 NHL Draft Guide is your quintessential draft resource.
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